New book mentions the Seigenthaler episode Options

[Daniel Brandt]

A new "Establishment" book will be released on October 25, 2011. Amazon already lets you search inside this book, and it will be available for Kindle. The hardcover is published by St.Martin's Press (289 pages).

Digital Assassination: Protecting Your Reputation, Brand, or Business Against Online Attacks

The authors are Richard Torrenzano and Mark Davis. Torrenzano is chief executive of the Torrenzano Group, a New York strategic communications firm. For almost a decade he was a member of the New York Stock Exchange's Management and Executive committees. Davis is a former White House speechwriter (for the first Bush) and a senior director of the Washington-based White House Writers Group.

There are some review blurbs on Amazon. Here is one: "Torrenzano and Davis blend a compelling narrative, killer anecdotes and page-turning prose into a sober and worrying account of what happens when the darker side of human nature harnesses the connectedness and anonymity of today's web. Their Digital Assassination should be in the hands of anyone who has a good name — or a good business — to protect." —Mike Hayden, former Director, Central Intelligence Agency; former Director, National Security Agency

Here is an excerpt, as quoted on Amazon:

ON JUNE 5, 1968, for reasons known only to himself, Sirhan Sirhan fired a bullet into the head of Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, killing him. In May 2005, a Nashville man, for reasons known only to himself, used Wikipedia to fire a bullet directly into the reputation of John Seigenthaler, former Kennedy aide, civil rights hero, and newspaper publisher, character assassinating him to the core. The Wikipedia entry reported that Seigenthaler: "was the assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960's. For a brief time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever proven.... John Seigenthaler moved to the Soviet Union in 1971, and returned to the United States in 1984."

Was the entry correct? Did it matter? It did to Seigenthaler. "At age 78," he later wrote in USA Today, "I thought I was beyond surprise or hurt at any negative said about me. I was wrong. One sentence in the biography was true. I was Robert Kennedy's administrative assistant in the early 1960s. I also was his pallbearer."

Did the entry really harm Seigenthaler? At that time, one of the authors was asked to pen an introduction of Seigenthaler for a speaker at a charitable event. Though not fooled by the Wikipedia entry, the writer took pause, consuming valuable time and attention to sort out the story in advance of the event. There is no telling how many others linked to John Seigenthaler were similarly perplexed ... or actually believed it. The entry sat on Wikipedia's page for 132 days, and was picked up uncritically by two widely used information automatons, Reference.com and Answers.com. For those 132 days, Seigenthaler's character was assassinated — not the man himself, but his reputation, his avatar constructed of words spoken and written.

Mark Davis interviewed me last April for this book because Seigenthaler referred him to me, and I am briefly mentioned in connection with the Seigenthaler episode. Then he goes on to write about Rachel Marsden and Jimbo.

[thekohser]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Larry Daniel.

Edit: I must have had Sanger on my mind while reading this. Sorry, Daniel!

This post has been edited by thekohser: Wed 28th September 2011, 5:14pm

[Peter Damian]

Daniel,

I am trying to get in touch with you but your PM is disabled. What is the best way? I am looking for more information about the Essjay affair.

Edward

[Daniel Brandt]

Daniel,

I am trying to get in touch with you but your PM is disabled. What is the best way? I am looking for more information about the Essjay affair.

Edward

See this page for links about Essjay. There is an email address in the "about us" at Scroogle.

[Peter Damian]

Daniel,

I am trying to get in touch with you but your PM is disabled. What is the best way? I am looking for more information about the Essjay affair.

Edward

See this page for links about Essjay. There is an email address in the "about us" at Scroogle.

Thanks – note 6 on the link answers one of my questions about the timing. My other question, which I may as well ask here, is whether the New Yorker published that note in response to your questioning, or for some other reason.

Edward

[Daniel Brandt]

My other question, which I may as well ask here, is whether the New Yorker published that note in response to your questioning, or for some other reason.

Edward

Once Essjay's Wikia page offered up his real name, which contradicted information he had provided on Wikipedia and had repeated to Stacy Schiff, it was simply a matter of contacting Stacy Schiff, as well as the New Yorker, and point out that they had published inaccurate information. Ms. Schiff never responded, but shortly before the New Yorker published their correction, an editor emailed me to inform me that the correction was about to appear.

The reason Essjay used his real name on Wikia was most likely because he had been offered a job with Wikia. This meant that he had to provide his Social Security Number to Wikia for tax-withholding purposes, as well as use his real name so that he could deposit his paychecks. If it hadn't been for that Wikia job offer, he'd still be parading his two fake PhDs, and still be lording it over lesser Wikipediots who worshipped him.

I also tried to get a response from Wikia's public relations person before the story broke, but I was stonewalled by them.

[Peter Damian]

Thank you. The main thing I wanted to confirm is that if it had not been for you raising this with the New Yorker, the affair would not have got public attention. It was already known by January that there was a problem, but (from what I can piece together) the Wikipedians were too naïve to understand the implication of this). It was only when the New Yorker published the correction (as a result of your persistence) and the blogosphere reacted, that they realised.

Sorry to hijack the thread.

[thekohser]

If I may just add, it is my understanding that Jordan had been fully hired by Wikia -- it had gone well past the "interview stage". I have published as such, many times, and I've never been asked to make a correction.

Also, I had the opportunity in 2009 or 2010 to talk with Stacy Schiff on the phone. She had a couple of words to describe what Jordan had done -- they weren't friendly phrases.

[EricBarbour]

For all we know, Jordan's still working at Wikia. I've been doing searches about Wikia employees, and it's almost impossible to figure out who works there, or what they do, or even what their financial status is.

I realize it's a private firm and they don't have to publish those things, but it's also a semi-famous Web company that has received venture funding. Those kinds of things often leak dirt like sieves. Since the last explosion (the demise of Wikia Search), they have kept an extremely low profile. Penchina was all over the place in 2006-2008 giving speeches. But since then, except for the drivel he posts on his Twitter, it's as if he died or was abducted by a flying saucer....

Then he goes on to write about Rachel Marsden and Jimbo.

Ooooh, I must buy this non-Wikipedia book.....

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Wed 28th September 2011, 8:57pm

[Daniel Brandt]

Thank you. The main thing I wanted to confirm is that if it had not been for you raising this with the New Yorker, the affair would not have got public attention. It was already known by January that there was a problem, but (from what I can piece together) the Wikipedians were too naïve to understand the implication of this). It was only when the New Yorker published the correction (as a result of your persistence) and the blogosphere reacted, that they realised.

Here is the Essjay thread I started on 26 July 2006. In this thread, on 11 January 2007, Somey posted about his discovery that Essjay had a Wikia user page with new information.

In this later thread, after the scandal broke, Somey half-jokingly complains that he didn't get proper credit for his discovery.

[thekohser]

I received the Digital Assassination book yesterday in the mail. Page 5 goes into some (less-than-flattering) detail about Patrick Byrne, Overstock, and Deep Capture.

Page 60 begins the Seigenthaler episode. Page 62 portrays Wales in a somewhat unflattering way, in that Seigenthaler had wanted the libel oversighted, but (apparently) Jimbo wasn't willing or able (it's not clear) to fulfill that. Daniel Brandt is (rightly) portrayed heroically.

Then, pages 64 through 67 painstakingly air the "Wales-Marden" affair in such a way that can only be embarrassing for Marsden and humiliating for Wales.

In conclusion of this section about Wikipedia, the authors (unfortunately) give the impression that institutional changes at Wikipedia then helped to make BLPs a more safeguarded quarter of the Wikipedia zoo. I'm not so sure that's true. I think BLPs are today savaged just as routinely, if not more often, than they were at the time of the stained t-shirt auction.

Pages 244-246 offer some tips on editing Wikipedia yourself if your character (or that of a friend, boss, or employer) is attacked on its pages. I would say their advice is tepid and won't really advance one's case in a dynamic way that consulting an expert would. It's a shame they didn't mention such an expert.

Seems like all of the non-Wikipedia stuff in the book is fairly intriguing and useful.